Dimensions of “Spirituality” : The Semantics of Subjective Definitions

Abstract

As part of the semantic analyses in the Bielefeld-based Cross-cultural Study of “Spirituality,” this chapter presents the analysis of 1039 English and 740 German subjective free-text-entry definitions of “spirituality” in response to the question: “How would you define the term ‘spirituality’?” The entire corpus of 1779 cases was rated using 44 categories which have been inductively developed from the material, leaning on Content analysis, Ethnosemantics and Grounded Theory methodology, and validated inter-subjectively in group sessions. Besides testing frequency distributions with the Χ²-Test, Principal Component Analyses were performed for dimension reduction, from which we regard the solution with 10 components explaining 42.11% of the variance as optimal. Thus 10 semantic dimensions of “spirituality” emerge from this analysis. Results from a second-order PCA suggest three components of the semantics of “spirituality”: mystical vs. humanistic transcending, theistic vs. non-theistic transcendence, and individual “lived” religion vs. dogmatism. Thus this chapter demonstrates that a wide range as well as clear differences in understanding “spirituality” emerge when analysed in a decisively idiographic approach.